About Loire

With the exception of Sancerre, which has been a hot item in the U.S. market in recent years, Loire Valley wines are among the most underappreciated of France. The wines made from vineyards alongside France's longest river are aromatic, brisk, and generally well-suited for early drinking; what they sometimes lack in flesh and complexity they more than make up for in sheer vibrancy and food-friendliness. The majority of this region's production is white, and white wine accounts for most Loire Valley wine shipped to the U.S.

Virtually all of the Loire Valley's best bottles come from four grape varieties. The Sauvignon Blanc grape, which makes the perfect summertime white wine--refreshingly brisk and dry--finds its greatest expression in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume. Chenin Blanc, a white grape grown in a variety of sites from Vouvray to Savennieres, yields wines that range in style from austere, minerally, and bone-dry to lusciously sweet. There is even a sparkling wine made from Chenin Blanc. The chief red grape of the region is Cabernet Franc, which makes a fragrant, juicy, light-to-medium-bodied wine in reasonably ripe years but can be rather green, if not downright underripe, in cooler vintages. Recent vintages, have shown more consistent ripeness, owing in equal part to global warming and to a variety of viticultural improvements aimed at reducing yields, increasing grape sugars, and lowering acidity levels. And of course there's Muscadet, the ultimate oyster wine, made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape in a cool, ocean-influenced climate where the Loire Valley reaches the Atlantic. Most Loire Valley wines are made without the influence of new oak barrels; what they offer, first and foremost, are the flavors of fresh fruit and an expression of minerality.

About France

France is the fountainhead of the grape varieties most craved by North American wine drinkers: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. In fact, these grapes are widely referred to as "international" varieties because they have been planted and imitated all over the world. Of course, one of the most exciting developments in wine over the past generation has been the growth of intriguing local styles of these varieties, such as Pinot Noir in Oregon and New Zealand, or Syrah in Australia, South Africa, and California. But most cosmopolitan wine-lovers -- and even winemakers -- would agree that French wines are the archetypes.

France enjoys the perfect geographic position for the production of a wide range of fine wines. Its relatively northerly location ensures long hours of daylight during the summer months and an extended growing season, allowing for the slow and steady accumulation of flavor in the grapes. Although the country as a whole enjoys a temperate climate, conditions can vary significantly within a limited land mass: cool and Atlantic-influenced; continental, with very cold winters and hot summers; warm and Mediterranean, with wet winters and dry summers.

Wines of France

France began classifying its best French wine-producing sites more than 200 years ago. Its detailed appellation controlee system, designed in the 1930s, has served as the model for classification systems adopted by other countries in Europe and elsewhere. Appellation d'Origine Controlee (often abbreviated to AOC), means "controlled place name" and is the consumer's assurance of the origin and authenticity of any French wine whose label bears these words.

AOC laws, administered by France's INAO (Institut National des Appellations d'Origine), establish the geographic limits of each appellation, permissable grape varieties and methods of production, minimum alcohol level, and maximum crop level (or yield) per hectare. Just beneath the highest category of appellation controlee is the comparatively tiny category of VDQS (Vins Delimites de Qualite Superieure), wines which may eventually be promoted to AC status and which are most commonly found in the Loire Valley and the Southwest. The third category is Vins de Pays, or "country wines". This latter category gives producers, including some of the more adventurous French wine growers, an escape route from the straitjacket of AC regulation in terms of higher permitted yields and less restrictive geography, a wider range of legal grape varieties, and fewer restrictions as to method of production and minimum age of vines. Finally, at the bottom of the pyramid, there are Vins de Table, or simple "table wines."

And yet, despite France's illustrious wine history and the fact that it is still the world's leading producer of wine, the country is struggling to compete in the international market. Today, France faces fierce competition from New World wine producers. U.S. imports of French wines actually declined, in number ofcases, between the end of 2002 and early 2006 -- this during a period when overall wine consumption in the U.S. grew by more than 50 percent.

Today, the French government is agonizing over how to help French wine producers, who are also facing homegrown challenges such as changing domestic drinking habits and an aggressive anti-alcohol abuse program. Wine producers in some regions of France are coming to view the AC system itself as an obstacle to selling wines to North America and other important export markets. Among the changes being considered are loosening restrictions on what can be planted where and on how wines can be made, and allowing producers in certain areas to indicate the grape variety or varieties on their labels -- rather than simply the place name, which is less meaningful to consumers in many of France's key export markets.

About Cabernet Franc

Flavor Profile

Less weight and more aromatic intensity than Cabernet Sauvignon

The Loire Valley's most renowned red wines, Bourgueil and Chinon, are made from Cabernet Franc, as are the mostly lighter, friendlier wines of Anjou and the somewhat more serious wines of Saumur-Champigny. Until recently, the aroma and flavor profile of Cabernet Franc had been decidedly out of step with the tastes of modern wine drinkers: herbal and peppery, with notes of tobacco leaf, menthol, and licorice, and often rather dry-edged tannins. But thanks to a recent string of favorable growing seasons , and to considerable work in the vineyards to reduce vine yields and promote greater ripeness of the grapes, today's Loire Valley Cabernet Francs possess more flesh and sweetness of fruit than ever before. These Cabernet Francs are also wonderfully flexible at the table. (Incidentally, when it was discovered that a compound called resveratrol, which is found in the skins of many red grapes, offers cardiovascular and anticarcinogenic benefits, the Cabernet Franc variety was found to be particularly high in this substance.)

There are also ample plantings of Cabernet Franc in the New World where the grape is used as it is in Bordeaux, in blends with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. In the Napa Valley, there are excellent examples, particularly in the cooler mountain settings where Cabernet Sauvignon struggles to reach optimum ripeness. Some worthwhile single varietal bottlings are being produced by Pride Mountain, Chappellet, and La Jota, among other producers.

Surprisingly, Cabernet Franc is also showing some success elsewhere in North America, including in Virginia, near Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson first attempted to produce fine wine. Pay attention to current efforts, as these are proving more successful than Jefferson's early endeavors.